


Fragments of Life

by still_lycoris



Category: Jonathan Creek (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ghosts, Goodbyes, Grief/Mourning, Kidnapping, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25353901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: Jonathan Creek is dead. Maddy Magellan intends to solve his murder. Only Jonathan's death turns out to not quite be the end ...
Relationships: Jonathan Creek/Maddy Magellan
Comments: 15
Kudos: 16
Collections: Multifandom Horror Exchange (2020)





	Fragments of Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LamiaCalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LamiaCalls/gifts).



Maddy unlocked the door to the windmill slowly, almost reluctantly. She’d been there a thousand times, of course, but this was different. It was always different.

It was funny how quickly a home just became a space filled with rubbish after a death. It was almost the same as the onset of rigor-mortis in her eyes. As the body cooled and stiffened, the home lost its reality. The essence of the person left and everything in it just became meaningless objects to be picked over by others, scattered to other homes until it no longer existed at all. She always thought people were the same really. You kept your memories of them but you didn’t make new ones. The memories fragmented, became separate incidents that you hoarded and picked at and tried to keep safe and sometimes you did but sometimes ... sometimes, you realised that you’d lost one without even realising it and the person was just a little bit less complete than they had been.

She swallowed, trying to push the thoughts away. Morbid, that was her problem. Barry had told her that once, in a loving way. He’d said she liked to try and fix mysterious deaths because death frightened her. Maddy had told him to stop being so daft. Which hadn’t actually meant that Barry was _wrong_ , of course. Just that she hadn’t wanted to talk about it.

She didn’t have to do the house sorting at any rate. That wasn’t her job. At some point, Adam would come and deal with the magical stuff and clothes would go into bags and the other books into boxes and slowly, the process would begin and – 

“You took your time!”

The voice was sharp and grumpy, just as it regularly had been in life. Maddy was proud that she did not scream. She didn’t even pause. She yanked her handbag off her shoulder and hurled it straight at the translucent apparition that was hovering in front of the kitchen table.

Of course, the handbag and all of its contents simply passed straight through Jonathan’s wavery ghost body, crashed into the wall and scattered said contents all over the kitchen. Jonathan gave her a cross look.

“Do you mind not messing up my house?”

“It’s not your house, you’re bloody _dead!_ ”

“Yes! Thank you! I _had_ noticed!”

Maddy took a deep breath, trying to stop her heart from beating its way out of her chest and stared carefully at Jonathan. It definitely was him. He looked exactly as he had when he was alive; stupid shaggy hair, hands in his duffel coat pockets and an expression that was going from cross to hangdog as he looked at her.

“Is this a trick?” she said, although she couldn’t really imagine a magic trick that would work after death – or why Jonathan would want to make one.

“I wish,” Jonathan said. “Or maybe I don’t, I don’t know. After ... _it_ , I just sort of ... ended up back here. I haven’t been able to leave. I’ve been waiting for someone to show up that would be able to see me. I knew it would be you. Here to poke around in my things and try to solve my murder before the police are you?”

And since this was exactly what Maddy _was_ intending to do, she couldn’t help giving him the slightly sheepish grin that she’d often sent his way when he was alive and she was dragging him into yet another strange event. Jonathan smiled back and Maddy felt her eyes begin to sting. She blinked hard and quickly looked away. She felt that if you were dead, the last thing you’d really want was people to cry about it, at least not in front of you.

“Do you remember what happened? This’ll be a lot quicker if you saw their face,” she said, staring at the little painting of a rabbit that had been on the wall as long as she could remember.

“It wouldn’t be, you’d still have to prove it. “Jonathan’s ghost told me” isn’t evidence that would stand up in court,” Jonathan said in that annoying way of his. “But I don’t really remember. I don’t think I saw but it’s a bit ... I was walking home and then everything became a bit ... whirly and then I was back here and I knew I was dead.”

“ _Whirly?_ ” Maddy said before she could stop herself.

She expected Jonathan to go grumpy again but he shrugged.

“It’s about the only word for it,” he said. “Like jumping off a high diving board.”

“As if _you_ ever went on a high diving board,” Maddy said. She felt she could look at him again now and not only that, she felt that food would definitely help ground her. Someone had been in to take out all the stuff that would spoil but she’d brought her own biscuits and she was pretty sure that the tea was still waiting to be made, even if it would have to be milkless tea.

“All right, how I _imagine_ that would be then. Everything went very fast and there was feeling like the wind was blowing and then I was standing in here and I just ... knew that I was dead.”

“Was it frightening?” she asked softly and the relief she felt when Jonathan shook his head was indescribable. When they’d called and told her, giving the news in little bits; _Jonathan had an accident, Jonathan is dead, Jonathan was murdered, Jonathan was stabbed ..._ she’d lain awake that night and imagined Jonathan being scared, being in pain. It had been awful.

“I mean, I assume it must have been scary when it was happening,” Jonathan said now. “But I don’t remember it. And here, it’s just ... annoying more than anything else. I couldn’t leave the windmill and when the police came in to rifle through everything, they couldn’t see or hear me and I can’t touch anything.”

“You always told me that ghosts didn’t exist,” Maddy said, feeling weirdly smug, even though she’d never actually believed in ghosts either and had only argued about it to annoy Jonathan.

“Well. New empirical evidence has come to life.”

He grinned at her and she couldn’t help grinning back at him. She’d thought he was dead. He _was_ dead. But she was seeing him again and he was still himself, even if he did shimmer rather. He was still there, still her annoying friend and partner that she’d missed.

Not that she was going to admit that to _him_.

She moved over to the kettle, filling it and turning it on, then rummaging for the mugs. She automatically took two out of the cupboard, putting them both on the counter before she realised that Jonathan would not be needing one. For a moment, she felt queasy, as though she’d nearly stepped off a ledge. Pushing the second cup away, she got out her biscuits, unwrapped them noisily and then took a bite before turning back to Jonathan, as though everything was normal.

“Right!” she said. “So, where’s all the good stuff hidden? No way did the police take it all!”

“They took a lot,” Jonathan said. “I don’t know that there was any good stuff really, that’s what made the whole thing a bit weird. It wasn’t even a very interesting case! Not like the nonsense you’d drag me into.”

“Oh, I never dragged you into _nonsense_ ,” Maddy scolded cheerfully. “I was just good at picking out of the cream of the crop for your giant brain.”

Jonathan gave her a grumpy look. Maddy kept her smile big and sweet until he rolled his eyes.

“If you really want to know, you’ll have to ask Joey. Joey Ross. She’s not quite as annoying as you – ”

“I’ll take that as a compliment!”

“ – but she’s got the same knack for trouble and this was her idea. We thought it was just a locked room mystery. Maybe it was, I don’t know. I’d got it all worked out only now, it looks like I hadn’t because I’ve been murdered instead.”

Maddy considered making a joke about Jonathan being wrong about something but decided not to. He was dead, it made any potential mistakes a lot less funny.

“Well,” she said cheerfully. “Next stop Joey Ross!”

“Hang on! It’s the middle of the night, you can’t just show up on her doorstep! You’ve never even met her for a start, she’ll think you’re nuts!”

Maddy supposed that was fair enough. It also occurred to her that Joey Ross was probably in quite a state. She, after all, thought that Jonathan was dead. Which he was, just ... more loud than most dead people. But he was still dead. Still gone. Nobody else could see him – or at least, they hadn’t so far, according to him. He couldn’t touch anything. And if it was like stories – which it might be, how could anybody know – after they’d solved his murder, he’d be dead again. He’d “move on” and he’d leave the rest of them behind with all the fragments.

“Don’t cry,” Jonathan said, sounding awkward. He reached out as though he was going to try and touch her, then let his hand drop.

She hadn’t realised that she had been. She wiped her face quickly and tried to smile.

“Whose crying? All right, I’ll save my visit for her in the morning. Have to think about my entrance anyway. Do you ... can you come away from here do you think?”

“I told you, I couldn’t before. I tried but ... just couldn’t walk out of the door. Maybe because this is my home?”

Maddy didn’t know how she felt about that. She thought about the house were her mother had died. Knocked down now. All in bits. If her mother had been there, where would she have gone after?

She’d tried very hard never to think about where people went after. Never really thought about the “after” at all, truth be told. You were alive and then you were dead and it was better to try and think about the “alive” part and she’d always been good at it (too good, Barry had said in that “morbid” conversation.) She’d sometimes vaguely hoped there was another place, a better one but mostly, she’d just assumed that it was more likely you just didn’t go anywhere. From that perspective, Jonathan floating there should have been comforting, a definite proof that there was some sort of soul or presence that went beyond your body but somehow, it wasn’t quite. It made her feel strange, as though there were things she didn’t understand and Maddy had always hated not understanding anything. It didn’t quite fit anything religious specifically but it _could_ mean there was a God out there and what did _that_ mean for how she lived? And did everyone become a ghost? Was the world just full of sad, faint figures that couldn’t leave certain places and waited desperately for someone who could see them?

“Are you scared?” she asked and her voice was small.

“Not really,” Jonathan said. “Honestly, I don’t know what I feel. I’m just ... dead. I can’t do anything about it. Might as well just get on with it.”

She sniffed.

“Typical Jonathan!”

It helped to know that he wasn’t scared at any rate. She wiped her face. Time to focus. She had always been good at tunnel vision when it was required. Focus on the main thing, do whatever was necessary to achieve that goal. It was time to solve Jonathan’s murder. Whatever happened, she could do that. Everything else would have to take care of itself when the time came.

“Well,” she said. “Let’s solve another murder, Jonathan!”

He rolled his eyes and it was as though she’d never left for America. As though she’d never been gone at all. As though he wasn’t gone.

She got out her notebook.

“Details first,” she said.

Everything else, she would deal with later.

*

It turned out Jonathan could leave windmill now that he was with her.

Maddy supposed it should have been comforting but it actually wasn’t. He looked in frailer and more see-through outside, as though he shouldn’t be there at all – which he shouldn’t be, of course, he was dead. She also couldn’t say that she liked the way he glided, rather than walked. It just looked incongruently creepy, watching him move along beside her – and then sometimes losing track of him because he didn’t seem to show up well in certain lights.

“You know when you see something out of the corner of your eye and you look but there’s nothing there?” she’d said. “You’re like that. Now I bet all those things are actually ghosts just wandering about.”

“Well, it’s hardly likely, is it?” Jonathan had answered. “I mean, if everywhere were full of ghosts, you’d think _I’d_ be able to see them, wouldn’t you? Or someone would have mentioned it before!”

“People mention seeing ghosts all the time!”

“Oh yes! Fake psychics and nutters!”

“Well, since I’m apparently one of those nutters now, maybe they’re less mad than you previously thought!”

She wished she hadn’t said it quite like that. She hadn’t considered the idea that this might all just be some insane delusion. Her therapist had always told her that she wasn’t mad but you could change from being sane to mad, couldn’t you? And madness wasn’t always interesting – take that man whose entire delusion was that he was a police officer. Maddy couldn’t imagine anything more boring than that and yet he’d made an entire fake life around it. Was she just making a fake life around Jonathan not being dead because she didn’t want him to be?

It was unsettling. So unsettling that she ended up not saying anything else for the rest of the trip back to her hotel. Jonathan looked even paler there. When she asked how he was, he said that he was fine but he seemed distant – although perhaps that was just because he was thinking about something else, he’d always been like that. Maddy got changed in the bathroom – which was ridiculous, really, Jonathan had seen her naked before, but somehow, it felt different – and wondered if it had all been a grief-fuelled hallucination. Maybe she’d wake up in the morning and he’d be gone and she’d feel like a proper idiot. 

He wasn’t. He was about the same level of translucent as he had been the night before, standing beside the mirror that faced the bed. She couldn’t see him in it.

“Don’t you sleep?”

“Not really. I don’t think so anyway.”

“Did you watch me sleep all night?”

“Well, I can’t leave! What else was I supposed to do?! Hang out in the bathroom? That’d be a barrel of laughs, wouldn’t it?”

Maddy went to shower and dress and wondered what it would be like to be stuck with somebody forever. Not a marriage or a partnership – which, after all, you could always dissolve – but _stuck_ with them. Not able to go away from them except for a few minutes, like this. Not able to touch anything or feel anything or _do_ anything. Just floating there, watching them.

In one of the fights they’d had before she’d gone to America, they’d both accused each other of keeping the other hanging. Usually, Maddy was quite good at remembering how an argument went but she couldn’t remember how that one had started or who had suggested it first. Most fights with Jonathan, she remembered and was amused by them, or remembered and felt vaguely annoyed that he hadn’t seen her point of view but that one, she always felt sad about, perhaps because they’d both been right and it had highlighted why she was going to America in the first place. They’d let themselves fall into a holding pattern relationship, both pretending that they were only there while waiting for someone better to come along, but also not _quite_ holding it enough.

How could you love someone and yet still somehow not end up properly dating them?

How could you love someone and end up leaving for another country, letting the other person die?

When she came out of the bathroom, Jonathan was still in the same place. He looked at her and could obviously tell she’d been crying, even though she’d washed her face and put on makeup.

“It’s not quite like being alive,” he said. “I don’t mind. It’s easy to sort of ... disconnect. I wasn’t bored or ... anything.”

He was obviously trying to help. Maddy wasn’t sure that it _did_ help. It was another reminder that Jonathan was dead and being dead wasn’t like being alive. She would be able to solve this case but that wouldn’t actually bring Jonathan back. He’d still be dead and either his spirit would stay on or it would not and she wasn’t sure which would be the better outcome.

“If I _were_ crying, who says it’s about that?” she said, trying to sound haughty. “Let’s go and see your latest girlfriend, shall we?”

“She wasn’t a girlfriend,” Jonathan said promptly. “Neither of us were even interested. She wasn’t like you.”

He didn’t say it meanly. It was matter-of-fact, the way he often said things. Maddy looked at him and wondered what he was thinking.

But she’d never known that, just as he’d often lost track of what she had been thinking. Which had almost always been the problem.

*

Joey Ross was clearly pretty on a normal day and normally, Maddy would have been cross about that, except that Joey Ross currently looked red-eyed, messy-haired and absolutely miserable.

“You’re Maddy?” she said when Maddy introduced herself. “Jonathan ... mentioned you.”

For a horrible moment, Maddy thought she’d start crying again. Maddy wasn’t good with other people crying. It had been the one thing where her team with Jonathan had always been ropey – neither of them wanted to try and comfort other people. 

But Joey pulled herself together with the kind of steel that Maddy immediately respected. She invited Maddy in, made her a cup of tea and produced everything she had on her and Jonathan’s “not very interesting” locked room mystery.

“The police don’t seem to think it can have been it, they’re looking at old cases but I don’t know. I guess maybe I’m just paranoid because if it _was_ this, they might come for me next but ... it felt a bit funny from the start, you know? I tried to tell Jonathan but you know him, he never ... he never really got the gut feelings side of it.”

“No,” Maddy said, trying not to look at Jonathan drifting over by Joey’s bookcase. “He didn’t, did he?”

“I keep thinking it was my fault,” Joey said. “If I’d not ... if I’d decided to drop it ... ”

“Tell her it wasn’t,” Jonathan said quietly. “Tell her I was interested.”

“I know Jonathan,” Maddy said firmly. “I’m sure whatever you did, he’d have kept going once the idea was introduced. If you knew the amount of times I told him to give up on a case and he kept going like bull in a china shop.”

“A bull in a china shop? _Me?!_ That’s rich coming from _you!_ ”

Jonathan yelled it in a very unreasonable way, given that he’d told Maddy to make Joey feel better. Maddy ignored him. Joey frowned a little and glanced over to the bookshelf, then shook her head, clearly deciding that she’d imagined whatever she’d half-heard.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Will you ... will you help me look into it? I know it might be dangerous but I’m not going to stop, not when Jonathan might have died for it. He was a prat sometimes but ... he was my friend.”

“Of course,” Maddy said. This time, she couldn’t help looking at Jonathan and even in his faded state, she could see how sad he was looking and the way his shoulders were slumping as he turned away.

Joey and Jonathan had both been right though, so far everything about the case wasn’t _that_ interesting. It hadn’t even involved a dead body, just a storage unit covered with what seemed to be creepy paintings that had been locked from the inside and yet empty. They’d only found out about it because Joey was friends with one of the surveyors that had been checking the place out and he’d thought she’d find it fun.

“None of them wanted to go in,” Joey said. “They thought it was spooky. It was a bit. Jonathan didn’t care though, he was straight in, poking about. Wasn’t even that interesting a mystery, if you knew what you were doing, it’s just none of them did. But it just felt wrong, you know? Maybe it was all those paintings. They were just a bit weird. And we don’t know who rented the unit – well, we have the name but they hadn’t paid which was why it was being investigated. I looked them up, not found any records of them. Jonathan said they must have been there recently but there was no record of that either.”

Maddy nodded her head. It all matched what Jonathan had told her the previous night. She supposed she should have expected that. Jonathan was nearly always honest after all.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Joey said quietly. “I thought ... I know what we do is dangerous, I know but ...he always seemed ... ”

“Eternal?” Maddy suggested, then regretted her own words as she glanced at the floating figure.

“Yeah,” Joey said. She gave her face a fierce rub, obviously trying to hold back tears. “Eternal. I just don’t ... It’s not right. None of it’s right. And he used to wind me up, you know, so much but I really liked him. He was a friend. You understand, right?”

Maddy didn’t know what to say. It didn’t help that she knew Jonathan was actually listening to this which meant anything she said, he would know – and the one thing she’d always been bad at was revealing real, open feelings to Jonathan. Anybody, in fact, which was the second problem. Anger was an easy emotion. Other things were complicated.

Jonathan seemed to understand part of this. He drifted over to a door and went straight through it. He’d probably still be able to hear but at least it meant she wasn’t _looking_ at him and could at least try.

“I understand,” she said quietly. “Jonathan and me had a ... I mean, he was the most annoying man on the planet, I used to consider murdering him sometimes, he was just ... but he was a friend. More than one sometimes.”

“Can I ask ... he’d never say about it. Why did you go to America?”

“Job opportunities,” Maddy said. She paused, struggling with more words but they wouldn’t come. They’d never come, even when Jonathan had asked (and he’d sounded so small that last time, so sad.) Why had she never been able to get the words out? 

Probably because she’d never really understood herself.

*

“I hate seeing her so sad,” Jonathan said later as they walked back to Middy’s hotel again. “I hate not being able to do anything.”

“I could tell her – ”

“Oh yes, I’m sure _that_ would go down well! “Don’t worry Joey, he’s not really dead, he’s haunting me right now, no honestly, he’s there by your bookcase.”? She’d probably hit you on the head with something for taking the piss.”

“She nearly heard you, when you shouted. Maybe – ”

“And if it doesn’t?” Jonathan cut her off. “She’s going to think you’re bonkers at best! I don’t know, would it really help anyway? I’m still _dead_ , aren’t I? I still got murdered. I’d just be this weird, half-visible thing that would probably freak her out. I shouldn’t be here. I’m dead!”

“You don’t have to tell me, Jonathan!” Maddy snapped, losing her temper. “I got the phone call saying the man I loved has is dead! I flew all the way over here to go to your funeral! I’m the one who you’re currently haunting! Believe me, I _know_ you’re dead!”

A man walking by gave her a peculiar look, obviously thinking she was talking to herself. Maddy glared until he walked on by. When she looked at Jonathan again, he had put his hands in his pockets and was looking awkward. Maddy wanted to pat him on the arm, the way she normally would have done back in the days when they’d had a little tiff and she wanted to cool it down. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything any more.

“Loved?”

“Don’t be stupid Jonathan. You know that I love you. I just never stopped being me and you never stopped being you.”

She could feel tears again. Jonathan reached out to touch her face, even though he couldn’t. Maddy wished that the hovering hand made her feel cold or clammy or anything, but it didn’t. Jonathan was a shimmering piece of the air and intangible as the wind.

“I never stopped loving you either,” Jonathan said in his most awkward, uncomfortable way. “It was all just ... ”

He trailed off. Maddy sighed.

“It was what it was,” she said. “It always has been with us, hasn’t it? We made all those moves but I don’t think we were ever quite playing the same game. And now you’re dead and we can’t ever get back on the same board.”

She found she was saying it quite cheerfully, which surprised her at first until she realised that it was simply because it was true. Jonathan was dead. He might be here forever, he might not but it took away all the old uncertainties. All right, there were new ones but everything else was now just a matter of the past. You could still love a ghost but if it was completely intangible, sex was likely out of the picture.

Well, unless she got _really_ creative.

She was opening her mouth to try and break the tension with this quip when Jonathan suddenly frowned.

“Someone’s watching you,” he said, very quietly.

“Yeah, well, I did just yell at nobody, then carry on a conversation with thin air!”

“No. They’re trying not to be seen. Don’t look round. Start walking again.”

Maddy obeyed, telling the creeping feeling in her spine that it was overreacting. Anybody would watch a madwoman who shouted at invisible people and they probably wouldn’t want to be seen in case the madwoman started yelling at them too. It was fine. There was nothing to worry about.

“They’re following you,” Jonathan said. “I’m sure of it.”

“You’re paranoid,” Maddy murmured but she didn’t think he was. She crossed the road, making sure to walk diagonally in the most casual way that she could, glancing very carefully to the side. There was somewhere there, quite far back, but there was.

“Go down this road here,” Jonathan said. “More people that way.”

She obeyed, making sure to walk at a steady pace, not speeding up at all. Walking as though there was nothing strange happening at all. Everything was quite all right.

Jonathan drifted away from her. She resisted the urge to yell at him not to. It had barely been a day and she was already used to him being right there. Not that he’d be able to protect her ... he’d be even more useless now than he ever had been before. But still.

“I can’t get very close to him,” Jonathan said, returning to her side. “I think there’s a limit of how far I can be away from you before I just can’t move any more. But he looks pretty focused. Get into a cafe or something and call a taxi.”

Maddy did what he said. She ordered a coffee and cake, then left them untouched as she waited for the taxi to come. Jonathan was hovering by the window, watching whoever was watching her and it didn’t make her feel at all relaxed.

The taxi driver was annoyingly chatty. Apparently, he knew a million people and apparently, he’d been driving forever and Maddy had to keep her teeth clenched to stop herself telling him to shut up. You didn’t want to annoy taxi driver. They could be very useful if you were trying to follow somebody. She’d rather he barely remembered her than thought of her as an annoying customer.

“Why is someone following me?” she hissed at Jonathan the moment she’d paid the taxi driver. “Why me?!”

“I mean, people are always following you,” Jonathan said. “You’re like that. It comes with being a nosy cow.”

“Oh shut up,” Maddy said. She wasn’t in the mood to be mocked. “Do you think someone has been watching Joey? Maybe I should call her, warn her? She didn’t mention anything though ... ”

“Well, she hasn’t got a handy ghost following her around, has she?” Jonathan pointed out. “It’s not as though _you’d_ noticed.”

“I would have done! I’m an expert, you know!”

Jonathan snorted in an unflattering way and Maddy was planning an incredibly cutting comeback when she heard movement behind her.

“ _Look out!_ ” Jonathan shouted but there wasn’t anything she could do and there certainly wasn’t anything _he_ could do and the last thing Maddy saw before someone put a bag over her head was Jonathan’s horrified and helpless face.

*

“Are you awake yet?”

Maddy opened her eyes and glared up at Jonathan’s faded face. She really didn’t think there was any need for that tone. Passing out when you were brutally kidnapped was quite reasonable, in her opinion. What would Jonathan know? He was dead! He couldn’t die again – or perhaps he could. It wasn’t like they really knew.

“Don’t talk,” Jonathan said. “There’s someone outside this room, they’ll hear you and I think they’re ... looking for that. I think they know I’m a ghost.”

Maddy sat up, making sure not to look at him as she did, just in case. The room wasn’t really a room, it was a cell. She wanted to blame Jonathan for this but he was probably right, speaking out-loud to him wasn’t a good idea.

She spoke out-loud to the door instead.

“Let me out! Let me out of here right now! I demand to be let out! You’ve got the wrong woman! I don’t even know what you want but I know that I can’t help!”

“Oh yes, that’ll work,” Jonathan mumbled behind her. “Another great plan.”

Maddy ignored him. She banged on the door again and was a bit surprised when it opened. She wished it hadn’t a bit. There were some people that you knew were dangerous when you looked at them and this was one of those people. It wasn’t particularly that he was taller than her – most people were after all – but it was that he gave the impression of being out of control. He stared at her and Maddy stared back, not trying to hide that she was scared.

“They stole it,” the man said. “It was supposed to be mine! _Mine!_ I did everything right! I had that room prepared! And then _they_ came along, they broke in, they stole the energy and I _know_ he’s one of them now! He’s _one_. You can see him, can’t you?”

“I can’t see anyone except you,” Maddy said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I don’t know who you mean! I’m only back here for my best friend’s funeral!”

She found feel her eyes stinging with tears and she wasn’t sure if they were from fear or if they were grief. It didn’t matter. The man obviously didn’t believe her anyway. He moved towards her and Maddy stepped back. She could see Jonathan hovering next to her. He looked scared too. What would happen if this man killed her? Would Jonathan just move on to wherever you went? Or would he be trapped here, trying to see if anybody else could see him?

Would Maddy become a ghost too?

“You’re a liar,” the man said. “You’re a liar. I know. I _know_ Jonathan Creek is here!”

“He’s _dead!_ ” Maddy screamed at him. “Don’t you understand that? He’s dead and you can’t ever make the dead come back!”

She could see the man didn’t believe her. He was shaking his head and when he lifted his hand, she saw he had a knife.

“If I kill you, maybe the energy will come back,” he said. “Maybe I can get it back.”

“No!” Jonathan said. “No!”

He took an ineffectual swing at the man, his ghostly fist just going through the body. The man didn’t even notice. He stepped towards Maddy, who braced herself. She had never been very physical but she might be able to get the knife out of his hand and – 

“Oy!”

The man half-turned and then there was a blur of blonde hair and a loud thump. Maddy blinked and stared at the woman who was standing there now, holding a large stick in her hands which she’d just hit the man with.

“Carla?!” Jonathan said.

“Carla?” Maddy repeated numbly. “Carla Borrego?”

“That’s me. You must be Maddy Magellan. Come on, we’d better go. His other associate should have been arrested but if they show up ... ”

Maddy thoughtfully took the knife, just in case, then made sure to close the door behind her. 

“How did you get here?”

“Someone started following me a week ago after Jonathan – ” Carla’s voice cracked and she swallowed, then went on. “Brendon noticed and we hatched a bit of a plot. There’s a friend of ours and she dressed up as me so the person was confused and I was able to follow them while Brendon did some research. He’s been so happy, he always admired Jonathan, I think he liked being as smart! We found out about this place and I was going to call the police once I knew everything. But then I found out about you and I couldn’t wait. Are you all right?”

Maddy nodded distractedly. She was looking for Jonathan. She was sure that he’d followed her out of the cell ...

But she couldn’t see him now.

“It looks like they were trying to bring back ghosts or something,” Carla said. “That’s Brendon said. The paintings on that storage unit were supposed to create a space where energy would be amplified. I guess that’s why he was so angry, he thought Jonathan coming in and bumbling around had ruined it. Weird, huh?”

“Oh yes,” Maddy said. “Very weird.”

* 

The funeral wasn’t as bad as Maddy had expected to be.

Adam had arranged it and to her amazement, he had kept it a calm and subdued affair, closer to what Jonathan would have wanted than his usual showmanship. Maddy had never seen him look so quiet and lost before. He didn’t even protest when his sister sat next to him and took his hand and fussed over him. There were several women who had come who gave him dirty looks and Maddy had a feeling they were various of his exes that had come because they’d liked Jonathan too. She couldn’t decide if she hoped they’d start a fight for the entertainment value or if she wanted the funeral to stay serious for once.

Carla and Joey were both there, of course and various people that Maddy supposed they’d solved mysteries for. There were an amazing number of people she and Jonathan had helped together too. People she’d never expected to see again. It was amazing to think that Jonathan had touched this many lives.

She wondered if he knew.

She hadn’t seen him again since being rescued by Carla. She’d gone back to the windmill but there’d been no sign of him. He hadn’t reappeared in the hotel room or spoken to her. She wasn’t sure if he’d “moved on” or just vanished away. Thinking about it made her feel slightly queasy again.

She met up with Carla and Joey in the wake afterwards. Carla had managed to lose her husband somewhere and Joey had come alone anyway so didn’t need to shake anybody off.

“It’s been nice to meet you all,” she said. “Jonathan talked about you both sometimes and it was ... nice, you know?”

“It’s nice to meet you both too,” Maddy said. “I mean, obviously, as the _first_ , I was the most _important_ ... ”

“What’s that they say? First the worst, second the best?” Carla said. She was grinning like a teenager. Maddy couldn’t help smiling back. She had been jealous when she’d realised Jonathan was still solving crimes with other people – that had been their thing! Their thing that he’d always whined about! He’d gone out and found a younger model to carry on doing it?! – but now she’d met them, she understood. She’d always known that Jonathan liked solving puzzles. She shouldn’t really have been surprised to see him carrying on. And now she’d met them, she could see that Carla and Joey were all right. 

“I keep thinking I see him,” Joey said quietly. “You know, just out of the corner of my eye but ... he’s not there. Of course he’s not there.”

“Yeah,” Carla said. “You know, when I opened up that door Maddy and I saw you, I thought he was there, just for a second. Like he was watching over you.”

Maddy looked at the drink that she was holding. Ought she say something about it? Tell them what had happened? But what if they didn’t believe her? She barely did and she’d been there. And she couldn’t put aside how disturbing it had been. The uncertainty about the world.

“I mean, maybe he is,” she said. “What did he ever know about the afterlife anyway?”

Both of them laughed. Carla leaned over and grabbed a glass.

“A toast,” she said. “To Jonathan Creek, the most annoying man that any of us will ever know.”

As they clinked their glasses together, Maddy saw him. He was more solid than he had been before but Maddy could tell nobody else knew he was there. He was standing next to Adam and wearing the expression that she’d seen so often on his face when he was standing next to Adam and listening to him talk. He looked up at her and smiled, a proper smile, the kind that she had rarely seen from him. He waved.

Then he was gone.

It felt better, to see him go. He looked _happy_ in a way he hadn’t while being a ghost. Even though she didn’t know where he was now or even _if_ he was now, it was better than him simply having faded. Jonathan would never fade. He’d always be Jonathan Creek, the illusion that wasn’t, the weirdest man she’d ever met who had always, even in death, managed to defy her expectations.

“Maddy? You okay?”

Carla and Joey were both looking at her. Maddy knew that her eyes were wet. She didn’t mind.

“I’m fine,” she said. “To Jonathan Creek!”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Remants of an Unlife (The Magellan & Creek (Deceased) Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26612623) by [thisbluespirit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit)




End file.
